BLUEBONNET GIRLS' STATE

BLUEBONNET GIRLS' STATE. Bluebonnet Girls' State, an American Legion program similar to Lone Star Boys' State, was instituted as part of the Americanism program of the American Legion Auxiliary in 1940 to counter certain imported un-American activities identified by the American Legion before World War II. The program's intent is to train high-school-age girls in becoming better citizens, with emphasis on American democratic principles and the American system of government. Program objectives also include teaching participants to live together as a self-governing group and informing them about the duties, privileges, rights, and responsibilities of American citizenship. Meetings were held at Baylor University in 1941 and 1942 but were then canceled until the end of World War II. They began again in 1946 and continued annually into the mid-1990s at Texas Lutheran College. Participants set up fictitious cities and a state, electing officials to govern each. Bluebonnet Girls' State is overseen by the Girls' State Committee, its policy-making body. Two girls each year are selected as members of Girls' Nation, held in Washington, D.C.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Harold M. Branton, The American Legion Department of Texas, 1919–1986: An Official History (Waco: American Legion Department of Texas, 1987).